John Page

Ah, Ok, so a system of logic does not fall within your definition of a delivery system. The additional criterion appears to be that a delivery system must be capable of understanding. Do understand this correctly?

Cheers, John

sophie

John,

(SOME Truth)-->(scribble)->(understanding) -> FINAL RESULT

John, one understands that the final result is true or false, but in a sense it can also include indeterminate.

Yes logic is a truth delivery system, because it gives a final result. As I have tried to rationalise, understanding is the antecedent to logical input.

Our truth delivery system must be capable of having understanding else it is truth by guesswork. Therefore in a limited sense logic has understanding due to its symbolic operations. Logic itself understands true & false means false.

John Page

By this I understand that logic understands things in some way. But then it is only a system that is implemented in our minds, so we can say our minds do the understanding and not logic.
So, what is this understanding, I wonder. What I understand by understanding is the ability to make an inference as to cause through comparison of information. Example: By watching the cow's mouth and listening to the mooing we understand that it is the cow that moos.

Do you agree it is impossible for us to perceive something that is not causal? Do you agree that logic is a causal system?

Cheers, John

sophie

JOHN, can I rearrange your statement :

By this I understand that logic understands things in some way. But then it is only a system that WAS implemented in our minds, so we can say our minds DID the understanding and NOW LOGIC CAN UNDERSTAND DUE TO THE TRANSCRIPTION PROCESS WHICH OCCURRED, NOW ESPECIALLY IF LOGIC IS FURTHER TRANSCRIBED INTO A COMPUTER.

John, the causality of logic is embedded in its existential manifestation.

John, your understanding of understanding may only be half of the implication.

John Page

Agreed. It doesn't really become a system until we think it - some consider that the system of logic is that contained within or comprises the letters and symbols used by us to communicate about the system of logic to each other.
Logic is? Can you give me an example?
I understand.

Cheers, John

sophie

John,

In logic if A-> B AND B -> C then A -> C.

The causality is embedded in the manifestation of logic namely A -> B. the causality of our inferencing system, the implication arrow.

John Page

OK, but the understanding part is having knowledge as to why if A->B. Why is this an inevitable feature of reality and truth-telling/delivery, if indeed it is inevitable?

Cheers, John

PS - These are genuine questions to which I haven't fathomed an answer. The closest I have right now is that such causal property is a necessary result of the mind being information based, i.e. the formation of information within the mind/brain cannot take place without a comparison process using parts of reality (our nervous systems) to represent other parts of reality.

Luiseach

Yep...this sounds logical enough.

So, in other words, without language there is no understanding, since we use language to represent what we understand.

Ah...a distinction is being made between three kinds of languages. I don't agree that a strict line can be drawn between L1 and L3; I also have my doubts about both the existence and possible expressibility of a 'private language' (L2).

I agree with leyline's modification of L2; the influence of 'culture' (through L3) cannot be discounted.

I would take the implications of this slight modification of the theory further by posing the following query:

If L1 and L2 are indeed 'personal languages,' to what extent can they be completely 'personal' if the influence of L3 is taken fully into account in their formation? I take it that neither L1 nor L2 develop in a vacuum, but rather in reaction to the internal processing of received external data, so if L3 is part of this 'external data,' what is the justification for claiming the existence of languages that are 'personal'? How do we know that L1 and L2 are personal rather than public?

What does a 'private/personal language' look like?

In A Companion to Epistemology, edited by Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa, a 'private language' is defined as follows:

'A 'private language' is not a private code, which could be cracked by another person, nor a language spoken by only one person, which could be taught to others, but rather a putative language, the individual words of which refer to what can (apparently) be known only by the speaker, i.e. to his immediate private sensations or, to use empiricist jargon, to the 'IDEAS' in his mind.'

---excerpt from Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa, eds., A Companion to Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) 368.

The idea of a personal language is tied to a highly subjective view of understanding which is, by definition, unrepresentable, is it not? For, if we attempt to 'translate' our subjective understandings, we need to do so by using a public language, and hence any evidence for a so-called private/personal language is 'lost' in the translation...

At best, perhaps, we could convince our subjective selves that we understand via a supposed 'private language,' but would we be able to convince others of the existence of this language without undermining its privacy?

I agree that one's understanding need not necessarily be 'true,' given the potential for partial understanding of the facts that go into producing what we call the truth.

What do you think about this: rather than viewing the truth as a destination or a goal, we could suggest that understanding is the truth, and that both are provisional, and subject to modification in view of the light of new data. The truth, in other words, is an event, a process of understanding - open to refinement, enlargement and correction. The 'Truth' (with a capital 'T') is therefore unreachable as such, whereas the 'truth' (with a lower-case 't') is both achievable and tentative.

Luiseach

So, to put this another way: the claim being put forward here is that 'truth' is an external phenomenon, and that we as potential 'knowers' of the 'truth' somehow find it outside of ourselves?

I don't completely agree: certainly, extrinsic realities exist, but what we call 'truth' has more to do with our internal processing of the data that reaches our brains.

Again, I only partially agree: 'what is out there' is not truth per se, but rather the raw material for the production of truth(s) via the 'truth-producing mechanism'/brain.

A truth could be viewed as a particular understanding of a given set of facts about reality...hence, in a sense, the truth 'occurs' where so-called 'objective' facts and 'subjective' perspectives intersect. What say you?

sophie

John : OK, but the understanding part is having knowledge as to why if A->B. Why is this an inevitable feature of reality and truth-telling/delivery, if indeed it is inevitable?

We made reference to two forms of understanding. Logic itself understanding, and the understanding which must be fed into the logical system to test logical validity. To which understanding are you making reference?

On the second point concerning the necessity of comparision processes for information formation, you would need to further convince me of its necessity.